Tag: vantablack

As an "Eff-You" to Anish Kapoor, Artist Stuart Semple Makes Super-Black Paint Available to All

Should any artist possess the exclusive rights to a color? As you may remember, last year Anish Kapoor announced he had done just that with Vantablack, the blackest substance known to man. After Kapoor acquired those rights, however, Vantablack developer Surrey Nanosystems developed an even darker version . Architecture firms and deep-pocketed luxury watch manufacturers were reportedly interested in using the color. For the rest of us on ordinary budgets, British artist Stuart Semple collaborated “with thousands of artists from all over the world” to create Black 2.0 , a super-black paint with similar properties to Vantablack. Semple has been manufacturing it and making it available for £11.99 (USD $15) for a 150mL bottle. What’s amusing is that he’s clearly done this as an eff-you to Kapoor. Here are some of the paint’s listed properties: * Unique acrylic co-polymer binder enables more pigment load than any other acrylic paint * Developed for artists by artists * Non Toxic * Priced at what it costs to make * Shippable worldwide * Not available to Anish Kapoor And some of the descriptive copy: [Black 2.0] has been developed in close collaboration with thousands of artists from all over the world. Their amazing insight, support and inspiration has formed this unique super-black paint for the benefit of all artists* *Except Anish Kapoor IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: this is not the blackest black in the world. It is however a better black than the blackest black in the world as it is actually usable by artists. *Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor. Black 2.0 has proven so popular that Semple’s last batch sold out. He’s been producing more and expects to have the next batch ready for sale by today, April 19th.

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As an "Eff-You" to Anish Kapoor, Artist Stuart Semple Makes Super-Black Paint Available to All

A Few Things You Should Know About the "Darkest Material Ever Made"

The color Vantablack has recently taken the world by storm after artist Anish Kapoor announced that he has acquired exclusive rights to the use of this color. According to sources and scientists, it is the blackest substance known to man and absorbs as much as 99.6% of light .   Kapoor’s trippy application of Vantablack As questions swirl around about the ethical implications of someone owning such a material, I wanted to dig a little bit more into the details of this fascinating pigment discovery. First off: how is Vantablack made and why is it ? As you probably know, pigments originally came from a large variety of organic sources. For example, blue often derives from lapis rock while the oldest source of bright green pigment is malachite , which is found in copper ore deposits.  Lapis lazuli rock, an organic pigment source.  Vantablack on the other hand is grown in labs and is actually made from carbon nanotubes—yes, tubes . This “forest”  of highly condensed tubes, grown on the surface of aluminum, are what cause the dark pigment as well as helping to explain exactly why it is so dark. So why IS Vantablack so incredibly dark?  In order to understand exactly how dark this material is, we have to go back to this idea of carbon nanotubes. Growing carbon nanotubes is not a new technology, and have been proposed for potential use in situations like cleaning oil spills and boosting solar energy storage due to its amazing structural makeup.  A visualization of the material; to give you an idea of scale, this material is almost 50, 000 times smaller than a human hair .  The material is 200 times stronger than steel, 1000 times more conductive than copper, and almost half the density of aluminum (an important point that we’ll revisit). According to the inventors of Vantablack, Surrey Nanosystems , when light interacts with this incredibly low density material it “is rapidly absorbed as it ‘bounces’ from tube to tube and simply cannot escape as the tubes are so long in relation to their diameter and the space between them. The near total lack of reflectance creates an almost perfect black surface.” Why in the world was Vantablack made? To put it simply, Vantablack was originally made for NASA—not only for its color, but also the structural integrity of the pigment. The pigment was applied to telescope components to absorb unwanted light from entering a telescope’s incredibly sensitive light detectors, but also proved “to withstand launch shock, staging and long-term vibration, making it suitable for coating internal components .” Vantablack is seen on the far left on a component for the International Space Station. So given all of this information, what do you guys think of this phenomenon going on right now surrounding this material: should someone be able to gain exclusive rights to a color with this much potential? What are some other uses you see for a pigment like this in the world? Also anyone who knows about this material and has more information to contribute, we’d love to hear in the comments below.

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A Few Things You Should Know About the "Darkest Material Ever Made"